Project Stakeholder Management

This is the fifth in a series of six articles to discuss Best Practices in Project Stakeholder Management, using the I-C-E cube model:

1. Identify
2. Classify
3. Expectations
4. Influence
5. Communicate
6. Evaluate

5. COMMUNICATE

We are told that Project managers spend 80% to 90% of their time communicating. So you need to actively manage communication with the various project stakeholders.

Use different strategies for the different groups of stakeholders (as classified in step 2).

• Key Players - Manage them closely and keep them fully engaged
• Important Stakeholders - Keep them satisfied. Don’t burden them with too much detail
• Affected Stakeholders - Keep them informed. Communicate regularly to check that no major issues are appearing
• Other Stakeholders - Monitor them. Communicate, but do not bother them with too much information

Manage the creation and distribution of project information, using a Communications Plan.

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Further than this, you need to spend time and effort to improve your own communication skills in these important areas:

• Written and oral (involving verbal and non-verbal communications skills)

Venues for communication:

• Internal, with the project team and organisation
• External, with the customer, the media, the public

Types of communication:

• Formal - Reports, meetings
• Informal - emails, conversations
• Vertical - within the organisation and functional group (for example engineering, sales, finance)
• Horizontal - with peers and other groups within the organisation

We’ll look at how to develop skills with each of the above communications in later articles.